Transfers: the pandemic has reinforced the dominance of Premier League clubs among the Top 5 (CIES)

"The percentage of transfer spending of Premier League clubs in comparison to the total big-5 league clubs' expenditure has increased from 36% between January 2012 and January 2020 to over 45% for the three post-Covid transfer windows," according to the CIES Football Observatory's Monthly Report 67, which presents a review of the transfer economy in the European Top 5 between 2012 and 2021, published on 02/09/2021.

Overall, "after having more than tripled between 2012 and 2019, the transfer fee investments of clubs from the five major European leagues have swiftly decreased due to the pandemic. A 58% drop was recorded between the last full pre-Covid calendar year (2019) and the first full post-Covid one (2021)," explained CIES. However, this negative trend was reversed during the 2021 summer transfer window, when European Top 5 clubs spent slightly more (+2%) than the previous summer.

Over the last three transfer windows (summer 2020, winter 2021 and summer 2021), the top ten spenders accounted for 35% of the total spend of all European Top 5 clubs, compared to 33% in the pre-Covid…